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There is a wind coming down through the valley today.
Harry stands at the dock at the edge of the river, bare feet grubby with mud and one hand perched on her sunhat to keep it from blowing off. She stands and feels the wind whip her curls into a frenzy, tangling them in ways her mum will curse at later, running the brush through them with a vengeance.
There’s rarely a wind in the valley, and every time there is, Harry knows something is coming. The mountains on either side of their little fishing village protect them from the harshest elements, and keep their world widely safe, but a wind in the valley is a sign of something knocking at the door and asking very politely to be let in.
Harry sits down with a thud at the edge of the dock and dangles her feet in the water and tells the something, whatever it is, that she is allowing it to enter.
A spider crawls across her leg from its home under the planks of the dock. A fish swims between her feet. The wind whips the ribbons of her sun hat out behind her like two dancing blue fairies. Harry hums along to the tune in her head and watches the water as it sparkles in the sunlight, splashing in little waves against the posts of the dock.
Yes, there is a wind in the valley today, and something is coming.
—
At night, when the stars have peppered the sky like sands on the beach, Harry stands out in the grass behind their cottage. Her feet squelch into the mud and the soft grass tickles her knees. The wind has grown stronger and the loose strands from her messy bun whip around her face like the lashing of a whip. The wind is never this strong. Harry wonders if whatever’s coming is dangerous. She wonders if it will change her life. She hopes it will.
Her little fishing village is beautiful and pleasant and quiet and sometimes just a bit dull. She loves it, loves the people in it, but dreams of whatever is beyond those green hills.
She knows there’s villages out beyond those green hills. Someday she’d like to see them.
Her mum calls for her to come inside, that the wind might knock a tree down soon, and Harry’s toes squelch through the mud as she makes her way back to the warm glow of the house.
Tomorrow, she thinks. The something will come tomorrow.
—
The break of dawn sees Harry dipping her toes over the side of her bed, landing on the cool wooden floorboards.
She runs a hand through her curls, the ones her mum spent an eternity last night sorting out, and makes her way to the kitchen. Her mum is there, like she is early every morning, with a plate of bread and cheese.
“Your dad’s gone down to the dock,” her mum says. “There’s a ship.”
“A ship?” Harry asks, mouth agape. There’s never been a ship at the dock. Sometimes a boat with a few travelers but a ship? It wouldn’t fit!
“Take your breakfast,” her mum tells her, motioning to the plate. “I know you wouldn’t want to miss it, with your terribly free flying soul.”
Harry grabs the plate, thankful that her mum knows her so well. She plants a kiss on her cheek and dashes out the door, hearing but not comprehending in time her mum’s demands that she put on shoes.
She can see the ship even from their house, its flag flying high. It looks ornate, gilded even. As Harry scarfs down her breakfast and flies on light feet toward the dock at the end of the road, she makes out a large family crest on the front. It looks familiar, but she was never particularly interested in learning things like lineage.
There’s a crowd around the ship at the end of the dock, as much as there can be considering the fishermen are the only ones guaranteed to be awake at this early hour.
Harry runs down to where she sees her father standing, ducking and fitting herself under his arm as he’s in conversation with another fisherman, Ted Daniels.
“Harry,” her father says, squeezing her around the shoulders. “This ship is the Royal James, and it comes from the castle itself.”
Harry stares up at it, even more imposing now that she’s so close. The river is incredibly deep here, it certainly couldn’t get this close to shore in many other towns.
“Why is it all the way out here?” She asks, and Ted laughs.
“It’s for you!” he says, his gruff voice always a little offputting to Harry. She shrinks back into her father’s hold a little. “For all the women of the village of marrying age. Seems our prince is finally looking for a bride.”
Harry wrinkles her nose. “Don’t the royal family usually go find other royal families to marry?”
Harry’s father shushes her. “It’s a great honour,” he says pointedly as a man in uniform disembarks from the ship. “Now run and tell your mum so she can get your things gathered.”
Harry nods, suddenly feeling cold. She feels the dust and rocks scratch under her feet as she moves away from his comforting embrace.
—
This is the part of the fairy tale where the young girl from the middle of nowhere meets the prince and he sees her inner (and outer) beauty, and they fall in love. She becomes a princess they rule with fairness until the end of their days.
This story is not a fairy tale.
Harry finds herself sent off aboard the ship before the day is done, and as soon as she steps on board she hates it.
It doesn’t rock gently the way a fishing boat does; it sways in scary ways that makes her stomach flip. Below deck smells of men, primarily, but secondarily of piss and other bodily functions. There’s no sunlight and no earth for her toes to catch hold of and anchor her.
She’s herded into a room with so many more girls than she would ever have thought she would meet, given a bunk and space for her things.
She looks around and sees girls who look prim and proper, their dresses tailored to the latest fashions and their hair done up fancy ways. They speak in giggly voices and hushed tones, and while one or two introduce themselves to her, it’s clearly out of politeness and not out of any sort of desire for friendship.
Harry tries to make her way up to the deck a few times, but each time is herded back down by sailors who seem scandalized by her very presence.
Thus begins the longest two weeks of Harry’s life.
She has no needlepoint to work on like the other girls, nor books or charcoals or anything that a young woman is supposed to be busying herself with. She had known, in a sort of far off and irrelevant way, that she had been rather traipsing past what most girls her age spent their time doing, but it hadn’t seemed an issue as she had no one to please but herself and her parents (who have always been wonderfully lenient about these sorts of things).
She becomes so very bored, though, that she takes to sneaking around the ship, getting chased out of various rooms by annoyed sailors or stares of girls who are politely gossiping their town’s whole histories to one another. She finds the kitchen (such that it is) and sneaks food, finds the scullery and sneaks spoons. She hoards small treasures like a magpie in her bunk because she hasn’t the slightest clue what to do with herself. It’s maddening and there’s nothing but worn wooden floorboards under her feet.
After a week of what feels like insanity, Harry turns down a passage that she’s rather sure leads to the upper deck where she certainly isn’t allowed, and she runs headlong into someone else.
“Oh hello,” says the someone else, and Harry rubs at her nose where she bumped it.
“Hello, yes, sorry,” Harry says, before looking up properly. It’s not a sailor, as she expected to see in this area, but a girl like herself. A girl whose hair is so straight and flat it looks shiny and soft. She has inquisitive eyes, Harry thinks.
“I’ve been watching you,” the girl says to Harry.
“I’m sure you have, it’s terribly boring doing needlework or charcoals or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.”
She says it without thinking, and then puts a hand up to her mouth in shock at what is surely a very insulting thing to say to a girl who cares about that sort of thing.
This girl apparently doesn’t, though, because she laughs delightedly. “Well it’s excellent news that I don’t care one ounce for that sort of thing, and neither do you.”
The girl holds out her hand - like a boy - to shake and Harry takes it. “I’m Louis,” she says. “It’s not my full name but my full name is my mum’s name and it makes me feel old.”
“Hello Louis,” Harry says. “My name is Harry. That’s my full name.”
“Not Harriet?”
“Lord no, I should hope not,” Harry says, and Louis laughs again.
“Harry,” Louis says. “I’ve just come from the upper deck. There’s almost never anyone behind the captain’s chambers so if you wanted to come have a look, I can show you the best views this poor sorry ship have to offer.”
“Oh that would be the best offer I think anyone’s ever made me,” Harry says, feeling relief at the idea of seeing the sun. Louis clasps her hand in a way that feels very forward but also very familiar, and leads her up.
—
It’s true, no one is ever on the upper deck in view of the captain’s window, so as long as Harry and Louis position themselves directly below the window, they’re as good as golden. Harry feels like she can breathe for the first time in a week.
“I’m not going to be a princess,” Louis says, after they’ve sat in silence and listened to the gulls for ages.
“Are you not?” Harry asks. “I mean, I’m certainly not, but you’ve got the looks for it.”
It’s true. Louis’ eyes are the bluest of blue, especially under a cloudless sky. Her hair is still smooth and shiny even after being whipped around in the wind, and her eyelashes cast shadows on her tanned cheeks. She’s a picture of beauty and Harry feels no shame in drinking it in.
“It’s not something I want,” Louis says. “To be in a castle all day, doing mundane things and being ordered around by servants. I’m not meant to be indoors.”
Harry nods thoughtfully. “I’m not either,” she says. “I come from a fishing village where we spend more time outside than in. This ship is a nightmare.”
“My family have always been sheep herders,” Louis says. “Through the generations. Wouldn’t have even known the ship was there if we’d spent another day in the upper meadows.” She rests her head on her forearms. “I rather wish that’s how it had happened.”
Harry gazes at her out of the corner of her eye. “Well he surely wouldn’t pick either of us,” she points out. “Those girls down there - this is their dream. He’ll pick one who loves him on sight.”
“Aren’t all girls supposed to love the prince on sight?” Louis asks, a serious shadow cast across her features. “I thought that was how princes are meant to work.”
“Well, if that’s how it goes then there might be something wrong with me,” Harry says, an act of boldness welling up inside of her. “I’ve never fancied much of any of the boys in my village. I can’t imagine a prince will do anything more for me.”
Louis’ shoulders shake with her laughter, and Harry feels warm, her cheeks heating up as Louis leans over just enough for their arms to rest together.
“That’s a very brave thing to say,” she says. “I knew there was something about you I liked.” She reaches out a hand and Harry feels the ghost of it over her own, trembling and light. “I can’t say I feel differently.”
—
The castle is grand, lovely, stuffy and boring.
The girls from all around the country now have real beds to sleep on, although they’re still all together in one room. Harry thinks it’s the hall that feasts are generally held in. She feels like they could have sprung for real rooms, possibly.
The beds are soft, though, and she’s thankful for that. She’s also thankful for Louis, who sneaks out of the room almost immediately and drags Harry with her, delicate fingers wrapping around her wrist and filling Harry with warmth.
They get lectured by the palace staff instead of the sailors, but Louis has a quick tongue and is able to talk them out of many tight corners.
The prince hasn’t appeared yet.
It’s three days into their stay when Louis rushes to Harry’s side, eyes wide and face red.
“Harry,” she whispers. “We’re not going back home!”
“What?” asks Harry, who’s been laying on her bed and dreaming of pasties from home. “What do you mean? I’m sure once the prince chooses-”
“No,” Louis says, glancing around to see if any of the women around them are paying them any mind. No one seems to be, too busy with their own lives and gossip. “I was in the kitchens, and I heard them talking! We’re all supposed to be staying here- as staff! Maids!”
Harry’s frowns, eyes wide. “No,” she says. “I can’t stay here! It’s terrible here! Everything’s made of stone and you never see the sun and no one seems to have heard of fresh fish-”
Louis shushes her with a hand over her mouth. “I’m not staying here either,” she says, face serious. “There’s no way. Maybe these other girls will be okay with it but you and I - we’re getting out of here. I need grass and sky.”
Harry nods, Louis’ hand still over her mouth.
“I’m thinking of a plan,” Louis says. “Give me a few days.”
—
Louis’ plan, it turns out, is called run, and it consists of the two of them sneaking out under the cover of nightfall.
It’s a very simple plan. No one really expects two young girls to try to escape the castle. No one comes looking for them.
“Do you know where we are?” Harry asks as they walk over the first crest of hill past the castle. “Do you know how to get home?”
“I don’t even know where your home is,” Louis says. “But I know mine is north of the castle. A long ways north.”
Harry nods. “Mine too,” she says.
“Then we go north,” Louis says.
Neither of them know which way is north without the sun to guide them, but walking along the path to town seems like a good start. It’s quiet outside and the sound of summer bugs fill their ears, humming and singing under the brush. Harry’s shoes are in her pack and dirt is already crusting her feet. She feels free.
“Will you come visit?” she asks. “When we’re both back home?”
Louis reaches out and, with purpose, captures Harry’s hand in her own. “Who said I’m staying at home?” she asks. “I have flocks. We can go anywhere. Do you have grass where you live?”
“Miles of it,” Harry says.
“Then maybe my home is in that little valley you’ve talked about,” Louis says. Harry feels herself go warm.
The sun breaks over the horizon just as they’ve made it to town. There’s a wind picking up, whipping Harry’s hair into a horrible mess and doing absolutely nothing of importance to Louis’.
In town they barter away three needlepoints stolen by Louis from the other girls in exchange for a ride as north as the man with the cart would take them. It’s only a start, but as Louis lays her head to rest in Harry’s lap as they’re snuggled among the hay (itchy between Harry’s toes), the future feels bright and beautiful.
The wind is ever at their back as they go.